Florence Griffith Joyner - analysis of her career

...and dead 10 years later because of the drugs she used.

Which drugs were those?

Blatant doper and that WR everyone knows it was wind waited.

she said she did 10,000 sit ups a day.

The only person more juiced than her in 1988 was Ben Johnson. When she started wearing those crazy outfits she knew she was going to win and run fast. The "Juice" was kicking in perfectly at the trials and Games. The smartest thing she did was to shut down the season, except for a couple of huge payday races in which she was guaranteed there would be no drug testing. Her entourage of JJK, Bobby K, and the UCLA sprint crew saw what happened to Ben J. and was smart enough not to "Go to the well" too much and risk getting popped. She retired and cashed in on her success before getting popped.

Arguably the BIGGEST drug cheat in U.S. Track and Field history.

She did plan to move up to the marathon.

https://buffalonews.com/news/times-not-on-the-side-of-flo-jo/article_e46f6772-90c3-5857-add7-efbee69df62d.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-06-22-sp-3191-story.html

Better running through chemistry.

That was the weirdest spectacle in athletics, indicative of so much ignorance, that she claimed she'd go for the marathon world record and that the media played that up as if it had any validity to it at all.

Aouita 84 wrote:

The only person more juiced than her in 1988 was Ben Johnson. When she started wearing those crazy outfits she knew she was going to win and run fast. The "Juice" was kicking in perfectly at the trials and Games. The smartest thing she did was to shut down the season, except for a couple of huge payday races in which she was guaranteed there would be no drug testing. Her entourage of JJK, Bobby K, and the UCLA sprint crew saw what happened to Ben J. and was smart enough not to "Go to the well" too much and risk getting popped. She retired and cashed in on her success before getting popped.

Arguably the BIGGEST drug cheat in U.S. Track and Field history.

I can't vouch for it's accuracy, but an account I read said up to the trials she was only doing some of her training under Bobby Kersee and left him completely after the trials. She was being coached by her husband.

She retired at age 29 in February of 1989, the year out of competition testing started.

Aouita 84 wrote:

The only person more juiced than her in 1988 was Ben Johnson. When she started wearing those crazy outfits she knew she was going to win and run fast. The "Juice" was kicking in perfectly at the trials and Games. The smartest thing she did was to shut down the season, except for a couple of huge payday races in which she was guaranteed there would be no drug testing. Her entourage of JJK, Bobby K, and the UCLA sprint crew saw what happened to Ben J. and was smart enough not to "Go to the well" too much and risk getting popped. She retired and cashed in on her success before getting popped.

Arguably the BIGGEST drug cheat in U.S. Track and Field history.

She wore similar outfits already in 87.

The "crazy outfits" were to cover the stretch marks. We began seeing a number of female athletes and teams (remember SDSU?) wearing outfits that covered their legs and arms in spandex even when it was extremely hot out. it was because the likely steroid use was causing stretch marks from the rapid muscle build. Flo Jo also began talking in a whispery voice around then, also quite likely to hide the deepening of her actual voice.

The one odd thing that she stated that she incorporated into her training was distance runs.

That was the odd thing that I always in the back of my mind.

I mean is that a cover for her body transformation and lean muscles?

But then again, she had the most relaxed sprinting form watching her 100m and even during the 400m relay compared to any great sprinters that came after her.

Doping alone cannot teach this, but yes I still tend to think she doped.

Flo Jo was one of the most blatant dopers in track history. But it just goes to show you that if you don't fail a test (which is very unlikely even if you are doping to the gills, especially if the system is corrupt) or don't confess, people will still suspend disbelief. And any runner that approaches her times is doping as well. The same thing happens in other sports. In cycling people still try to argue that Indurain or Pantani or Contador were clean. In distance running people still feign agnosticism about Ma's army or Houlihan or Hasan. As long as people are so willing to suspend disbelief and come up with alternative explanations (shoe's, genetic disposition, and alleged running culture, etc), no athlete has any reason not to cheat for glory.